


What's In A Name?

by monkeystypinghamlet



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: F/M, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-20 20:09:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2441405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monkeystypinghamlet/pseuds/monkeystypinghamlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two students, both alike in dignity,<br/>In fair Messina (where we lay our scene),<br/>From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,<br/>Where civil banter makes civil mouths unclean.<br/>From forth the fatal minds of these two foes<br/>A pair of star-cross’d lovers renew their life;<br/>Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows<br/>Doth with their coupling bury their friends’ strife.<br/>The fearful passage of their banter-mark’d love,<br/>And the continuance of their friends’ rage,<br/>Which but their blessed’s love nought could remove,<br/>Is now the five chapters’ traffic of my fic;<br/>The which if you with patient ears attend,<br/>What here shall miss, my toil shall strive to mend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Audition

**Author's Note:**

> Idea from [this post](http://thetenthdoctormccoy.tumblr.com/post/99717567525/nmtd-au-where-benedick-and-beatrice-get-cast-as) by [thetenthdoctormccoy](http://thetenthdoctormccoy.tumblr.com).
> 
> I am very sorry to Shakespeare for butchering his gorgeous prologue. I know I've broken the iambic pentameter, but there's a reason he's the most famous playwright ever and not me.
> 
> This is essentially fanfic of reimagined Shakespeare characters putting on one of his plays. It's so meta that I think it's given me a headache.
> 
> Enjoy! x

It had been Hero’s idea.

“Come on, guys, it’ll be fun! The drama department is on the verge of shutting down, they need the people. And it’s _Romeo & Juliet_. It’s a classic!” Beatrice mimed sticking her finger down her throat.

“Classic? I’m pretty sure you mean over-told piece of rubbish,” she said.

“You’re calling Shakespeare rubbish?” Ursula gasped.

“No, no,” Bea clarified. “He’s got his merits. I just think he could’ve chosen a better topic to write about than two love-crazed teens. Who on earth would want to watch that?” Hero hit her over the head with a copy of the play.

“Give it another read,” Hero said, “and see if that changes your mind? Please?” Beatrice begrudgingly took the book. “Just audition. That’s all I’m asking.”

“Fine,” Bea said. “But just for you, okay? I still think it’s a stupid story.”

“Well, that’s a start,” Hero said.

 

It had been Hero’s idea.

“Come on, Ben, it’ll be fun!” she promised. “The whole gang’s getting involved. Even Bea’s auditioning.”

“ _Beatrice_?” Ben said. “You convinced _Beatrice_ into trying out for this sappy play?”

“It wasn’t that hard, actually,” Hero said. “Look, she’s been reading it all day.” Hero pointed across the lunch area to where Bea was sat with Meg and Ursula, her head in the book.

“Whatever,” Ben resigned. “When are auditions?”

 

Bea had to admit, _Romeo & Juliet_ was a lot better than her fourteen year old self remembered. She’d studied it back then, at her school in Wellington, but she must’ve been too young to appreciate any of it. God, I sound so pretentious, she thought. But it was true - sure, it was still about two love-crazed teens who Bea refused to consider three-dimensionally. But wow, the language was beautiful and she found herself laughing at the antics of sappy Romeo, level-headed Benvolio and crazy Mercutio. When she reached the Queen Mab speech, she was by herself in her room so she read it out loud. The whole thing was actually kind of genius. Not that she’d tell Hero.

“How’s it going?” her cousin asked.

“Alright,” Bea said over dinner. “I think I’m going to audition using the Queen Mab speech.”

“Wow, that’s brave,” Hero said. “That’s one of the most debated Shakespeare speeches out there.” Bea shrugged.

“I like it,” she said. “And I’m just auditioning. It’s not like I’ll actually get a part.”

“Sure, of course,” Hero replied.

 

But the more that Bea read of the play, the more she realised that she actually did want to be involved. She could see herself in a whole myriad of roles - she loved the bantering nature of the Nurse as well as the good-natured Mercutio. She wasn’t sure if Messina’s drama teacher was willing to cast any of the parts in different genders but she’d already made up her mind about reading Queen Mab.

 

“Wow, Beatrice,” Mr. Francis said after Bea had given her interpretation of Queen Mab, “I’m impressed. I didn’t know you were interested in drama.”

“Neither did I,” Bea muttered.

“Well, just like everyone else, I’d like you to prepare this for me,” Mr. Francis said, handing Bea a script. “You have five minutes to read through it and then you can come back to perform.” Um, what? Bea thought. I can’t do that!

“Sure,” she said, grimacing. She went out into the hallway next to the drama studio and almost screamed when she read through the scene. It was one of Juliet’s soliloquies. Mr. Francis didn’t think she’d make a good Juliet, did he? He did say “just like everyone else” when he’d handed her the scene. Calm down, Bea told herself. It’s just an audition. You don’t even like this play that much, really. It’s just for Hero. 

 

Ben was in such a daze when the door to the drama studio opened that he almost bumped into Beatrice.

“Ben?” she screeched. “You’re auditioning?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Long story. How’d it go?”

“Oh, um, it was - it was fine,” Bea mumbled and quickly rushed down the hall. Strange, Ben thought. Beatrice was never that flustered. And she usually never passed him by without offering up an insult.

 

Bea found herself an abandoned stairwell and sat by herself in the cool air to try and calm down.

It was okay to change what she liked, wasn’t it? Sure, she’d called this play ‘rubbish’ a few days ago and here she was ready to be in it. But Juliet... that was another matter entirely. She could never, _never_ admit that something inside her had clicked when she’d read that soliloquy. 

 

_O look! methinks I see my cousin’s ghost_

_Seeking out Romeo that did spit his body_

_Upon a rapier’s point. Stay, Tybalt, stay!_

_Romeo, Romeo, Romeo! Here’s drink–I drink to thee._

 

After drinking the potion from the Friar, Juliet was even more delirious than Mercutio when delivering the Queen Mab speech. Sure, Mercutio was much more self-assured and badass than Juliet could ever be but he knew what he was doing. Juliet was going through the fear of not knowing whether the potion from the Friar would even work. She might’ve just killed herself for all she knew. That level of uncertainty - Bea could sympathise with that. Maybe Juliet just had no idea what she was doing, instead of being two-dimensionally ‘stupid.’ 

 

“Bea, are you okay?” Hero asked.

“Of course, why?”

“Well, you’ve spent most of the weekend in your room? Are you sick?”

“I’m fine.”

“Callback lists go up tomorrow... that doesn’t have anything to do with it?”

“ _No._ ”


	2. The Callback (Part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm splitting "The Callback" part of the story into two chapters because it turned out much longer than I expected.
> 
> "The Callback" (Part 2) should be posted tomorrow!
> 
> Also today's writing music was [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRERpHXY5zQ) thanks to a certain someone's screechy rendition of it.
> 
> x

Bea’s name was listed under “Juliet.”

It was just a sheet of paper. It didn’t mean anything.

But she didn’t know how to feel about it.

If she was being perfectly honest, it was more that she had a lot of feelings but she didn’t know which one to trust. On one hand, she wanted to scream and run in the opposite direction which was probably just what Hero and the others expected her to do. Bea wanted to die at the thought of even having to read for Juliet again. But on the other hand, she was kind of excited. And that thought made her sick.

“Bea? You’ve been staring at the list for like five minutes straight. Are you okay?” Meg asked.

“I’m fine,” Bea said, finally breaking eye contact and walking away. “I’m just confused, that’s all.” Confused. Bea could deal with being confused. She was always right, and now that she didn’t know what was going on she at least knew that she was right about how she was feeling: confused.

 

Bea went down to the drama studio with Meg to pick up their callback scripts. They found the piles rather easily, all lined up outside Mr. Francis’ office. Meg was up for the Nurse and Mercutio. Bea grabbed those two as well as Juliet. I got a callback for three roles, Bea thought. How the fuck did that happen?

“Feeling better, Beatrice?” someone asked from behind her. Bea turned around sharply, snapping back to attention. Benedick was standing right behind her, reaching for the scripts.

“Better? Who said I was feeling sick?” she said.

“Hero said you weren’t feeling well over the weekend.” Bea sighed.

“Just because I decided to spent the weekend in my room instead of outdoors frolicking in meadows or frequenting nightclubs doesn’t mean I was sick,” she insisted.

“No need to be so defensive,” Ben said. “I just asked. Sorry for trying to be nice for once.”

“Yeah, well, don’t do it again,” Bea said. “Wait… who’d you get a callback for?” Ben showed her the only script he’d picked up. The name “Romeo” written across the top in big black letters.

Now Beatrice did feel sick.

 

“Maybe I just shouldn’t go,” Bea said to Hero when they got home from school. “They don’t need me, right? I’ll just miss the callback.”

“Beatrice, that’s the whole reason I asked you to audition in the first place - we need more people,” Hero said.

“Yes, but I suck.”

“You can’t be that bad. Surely.” Hero pointed to Bea’s pile of callback scripts.

“Well, can’t I ask Mr. Francis to just let me read for the Nurse and Mercutio? You’d be a much better Juliet than me. I don’t know why he hasn’t just given you the part straight up.”

“Stop being so petty!” Hero scolded. “You always tell me that you do well at the things you love. You’re sure there isn’t some part of you - some small, minuscule, practically non-existent part - that might actually love the idea of Juliet?” Beatrice thought about it. She thought about Juliet. She thought about being young and in love.

“No,” Bea said. “Not at all.”

“Fine, alright. Ursula and Meg are coming over later to watch movies,” Hero said. “Are you going to stop sulking and join us?”

“I don’t know,” Bea replied. “Maybe. I’m going up to my room.”

 

Beatrice slumped down against her bedroom door and put her head in her hands. There was just something about _Romeo & Juliet_, she decided. Something about it that was bugging her and after a lot of thinking, she was finally beginning to work out what it was. Because Bea had much more in common with Juliet than she’d first thought. After all, Bea knew exactly how it felt to be young and in love.

 

Fourteen year old Bea had been everything Juliet was - young, stupid, silly, naive, hopeful, crazy… in love. Bea knew that her feelings for Ben back then had been nothing but a dream but what had she felt at the time? It all came flooding back to her now. Bea could remember how she’d feel when hanging out with Ben, feeling like he was the shining light in her life, feeling like he was all that mattered anymore. And yeah, that was stupid. But it had felt so _real_. There weren’t many things in life that felt so honestly pure and simple, even though that probably wasn’t true at all. A first love was one of them. I should stop condoning Juliet’s feelings, Bea realised. When I went through the exact same thing.

 

Bea had fallen asleep when Meg came in.

“Bea? Oh my God, sorry - did I wake you?”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Bea said. “What’s up?”

“The others are talking and it’s kind of… about you. I thought you’d wanna hear.”

“Oh. What?”

“Come on. You can be sneaky, right?”

So Bea had followed Meg downstairs and found herself a hiding place.

“What were you saying about Bea being whiny?” Meg asked, rejoining the conversation.

“Oh, nothing much,” Hero said. “Just that she’s been going on and on about this Juliet thing.”

“But it’s such a great part!” Ursula said. “I know she’s nothing like Juliet - she’s much more strong and fierce - but can’t she put that aside? I mean, it’s called acting for a reason.”

“I don’t know,” Hero said. “I thought asking her to audition would be a good idea, but the way she’s been carrying on recently I don’t really know.”

“I’m sure it’s just a phase,” Meg said. “The part will go to someone else and Bea will forget about it.”

“Yeah, of course,” Hero said. “But you know what’s really strange? I was talking to Ben today and he said that he thinks Bea would actually be really great as Juliet.” Upon hearing this, Bea had to stuff the edge of her shirt into her mouth to stop herself from bursting out into laughter. Ben had said _WHAT?_ That was ridiculous. He would - he would never…surely not.

“Well, I think he’s right,” Ursula said as Bea continued her struggle of trying not to laugh. “She’s got the fire and passion to be a great actress. I think she’s the natural choice for the part.”

“That’s what Ben said!” Hero said. “Wait, I swear I can remember how he phrased it. Give me a second.” Hero paused and Beatrice held her breath. “Perfect, that’s it! Ben said that Beatrice would make a perfect Juliet.”

 


	3. The Callback (Part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a little longer to write than I expected. The more I write, the more ideas I have for this fic. It's getting quite long. Someone stop me.
> 
> Today's [writing music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymI4iYQqdVM).

Ben had left his room for one minute to go and make tea and already Claudio and Pedro had gotten bored and started talking again without him. He was about to storm in when he started listening to what they were saying and decided it might be better to stay outside.

“Ben’s being a dick, don’t you think?” Claudio asked.

“Oh yeah, always,” Pedro agreed.

“But I mean, about this whole Beatrice as Juliet thing. I swear we didn’t talk about anything else at lunch today because apparently that was all he could think about.” Ben scoffed. Of course he couldn’t think about anything else. Bea had been rude to him both times they’d spoken today - firstly at the drama studio when Ben had actually tried to be nice. And yeah, he’d set the tone for their second conversation (throwing spitballs in class had never gotten old) but she hadn’t needed to yell at him like that in front of everyone.

“It’s just funny,” Pedro said. “Because I was talking to her after school and she was actually being nice about Ben for once.”

“No, yeah,” Claudio said. “That’s what Hero told me - Bea saw Ben’s audition for Romeo and thought it was really, really good.” Ben was so surprised he dropped the mug of tea he’d been holding, which proceeded to shatter into a million pieces on the floor outside his room.

“Shit!” he muttered.

“Wait, what was that?” Pedro asked. Ben froze.

“What was what?” Claudio said. “Are you hearing things?”

“Must be,” Pedro said. Ben breathed a sigh of relief. “Anyway, so what - Bea actually thinks Ben would make a good Romeo?”

“Yeah,” Claudio said. “Weird, huh?”

 

Ben didn’t exactly mean to, but later that night he found himself looking up Beatrice on Facebook. They weren’t friends, he swore they used to be at some point but she must’ve unfriended him a long time ago. But he could see her profile picture and a few of her likes. It was a beautiful photograph, he had to admit. According to the caption Ursula had taken it and the date revealed she’d only just changed it recently. Bea lying on the grass in the Duke’s backyard pulling one of her classic faces as the sunlight danced in her hair. Ben shut the laptop before he could think about her any more. The script for Romeo glared at him from the other end of his bed, still needing to be memorised before the callback tomorrow.

 

A perfect Juliet? WHAT THE FUCK? Beatrice spent like half an hour pacing in her room, what Hero had said going round and round in her head. She tried everything to get them out. She did her physics homework. Still thought about it. She tried taking a nap. She couldn’t sleep. She tried every type of music on her computer - classical, pop, rock, whatever. She even tried those hacks _Fife and the Drums_ to see if the dubstep would blast the thoughts from her head. Nothing. _A perfect Juliet_.

 

The next morning, Ben turned up to the callback fifteen minutes early and sat in the stairwell by the drama studio, going over his lines.

 

Bea slept through her alarm and screamed when she realised what time it was, sending the whole flock of birds that had been sitting on her windowsill flying away in a panic.

 

Ben only noticed that Bea was missing after the callback had already started.

“Mr. Francis, I’m sure she’s on her way,” he told their drama teacher. What the hell am I doing, sticking up for her? Ben thought. How out of character.

“I’m here, I’m here!” Bea said, flying through the door and dumping all her stuff to join the others in the middle of the room.

“Just in time, Miss Duke,” Mr. Francis said. Bea was still panting and he didn’t look happy at her late arrival, but she was here. Out of breath and head spinning, but she’d made it. Thank God.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” Ben confessed.

“What?” Bea said, smiling at him. Shit, don’t smile. What’s up with that. No. Not happening. She frowned instead, trying to think Juliet thoughts, not Bea thoughts.

“Okay, we’ll do all the individual callbacks first,” Mr. Francis announced, “and then pairs. Miss Duke, you can go first.” Pairs? Bea thought. “Miss Duke?”

“Yes, right,” Bea said, moving forward as all the others filed out of the room to wait their turn. Bea took a deep breath, trying to remember the advice Hero had given her the night before. Lots of deep, long breaths. Remember your lines as thoughts. You are not Beatrice. You are Juliet.

 

Beatrice was out of breath once she finished the soliloquy, but for a different reason. After uttering her last words, she looked up to see Mr. Francis and remembered suddenly that she was not on a balcony in Verona. She was at Messina High School. How have I never done this before? she thought. That’s the first time I’ve ever felt… far away. Far away in a whole other universe. Beatrice loved studying science and thinking about other worlds but she never thought she could feel like she was actually somewhere else. Acting was… transporting. It was like travelling while staying exactly where she was.

 

When Mr. Francis came back into the room with the other half of her pair, she really wasn’t surprised to see who it was. Fate fucked over Juliet, what’s to say it would leave Beatrice alone?

“Hi,” Benedick whispered to her quietly and did that stupid hand wave of his. She smiled. FUCK. NO. NO SMILING.

“It’s not a very long scene to read,” Mr. Francis said. “It’s from Act 1, Scene 5 when Romeo and Juliet meet for the first time. I just want to see how you react to reading it for the first time and how you react to each other.” Bea would’ve fake-vomited if this hadn’t been such a serious situation.

“Okay,” was what she said.

“When you’re ready, Benedick,” Mr. Francis said as they both read through the scene. Beatrice remembered this scene from her reread of the play, it was actually pretty ridiculous - Romeo pretty much used a pick-up on Juliet. What a classic love story. But Juliet was young and innocent, Bea remembered. All of this feels real to her.

She stared at Ben. She did not, _not_ want to read this with him. How was she going to act like she was being wooed by _Benedick_? It was going to be the biggest acting challenge of Bea’s _life_ , surely.

“If I profane with my unworthiest hand,” Ben began. “This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this: / My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand / To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.” Bea noticed that Ben had ignored the stage direction of taking her hand. She didn’t mind, she told herself. She totally did not mind.

“Good pilgrim,” she said, “you do wrong your hand too much, / Which mannerly devotion shows in this, / For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch, / And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.”

 

When Mr. Francis dismissed them both, Ben tried not to think about how Beatrice had held up her hand and he had matched it with his. How volts of electricity had shot through his body just like _that_. The way that Bea had looked straight into his eyes like she had nothing to hide. But it was called acting for a reason, right? They were just good actors. That was it. Ben was undeniably the best actor in the world if he had just acted like he was in love with… nope, he wasn’t even going to think about it. Nope nope nope.

“That was…um…” Benedick said, trying to describe what had just happened and failing miserably.

“Yeah…” Bea said. She didn’t really know how to talk about it either.

“I thought…” Ben started and paused again. What did he think? _I thought that when our hands touched, fireworks were going off. I thought that wow, we must be the best Romeo and Juliet the world’s ever fucking seen. No, wait, I thought that the whole world had stopped when we reached the end of that scene. I thought if it’d gone a second longer, I would’ve actually kissed you. No, wait, fuck, that can’t be right–_

“I thought you were great,” was what Ben settled for.

“Oh,” Bea said and smiled. “You too.”

 

Bea didn’t even respond to any of Hero’s jabs at dinner that night. She didn’t even mention reading for Mercutio or the Nurse. Hero didn’t ask. Bea described her callback with Ben as “fine.” She said the same thing about when she had read the same scene with another boy ten minutes later. She didn’t talk about how Daniel had put nowhere near as much emotion into it as Ben had. She didn’t compare them. She didn’t think about it at all.

 

It would be another week before the full cast list went up. Beatrice didn’t want to think about how seven days could feel. Fuck, that was twice as long as the whole play - it only lasted three days. At the same time, Beatrice didn’t want to see the list. Because, well, now she knew what she wanted it to say.

 


	4. The Cast List

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took so long to update. My exams have started so unfortunately there's not much time to write. I will try and finish this as quickly as I can though, I don't want to leave you hanging! x

ROMEO                BENEDICK HOBBES

JULIET                  BEATRICE DUKE

PARIS                   DANIEL TURNER

CAPULET              CLAUDIO MATTHEWS

NURSE                  MARGARET WITHERS

MERCUTIO            TOM CLARK

BENVOLIO             SAMANTHA ROGERS

PRINCE                 PEDRO DONALDSON

FRIAR                    JASON COX

LADY CAPULET      HERO DUKE

TYBALT                 ZOE CAMPBELL

 

Ben was speechless. He’d gotten the part. He’d gotten the part! He was Romeo! Oh no. Why was he so excited? Should he be feeling excited? Should he be feeling nervous?

“Benedick Hobbes and Beatrice Duke,” Pedro declared. “The star-crossed lovers of Messina High School!” Ben was nervous about his Juliet, that was certain. His mixed emotions at being cast as Romeo were nothing compared to that girl.

“Shut up,” Ben groaned. He could sense that in the next few months, he was going to endure a _lot_ of teasing.

“Is it up? Oh my God, it’s up!” Ben knew Beatrice’s voice before he even saw her and took a sharp intake of breath just at the thought of her being near. She pushed them all aside and Ben watched as her eyes searched for her name. He watched as her face went through excitement and terror in about half a second. Oh well, Ben thought. At least I’m not the only one.

“Bring it on, Hobbes,” Bea said to him.

“Looking forward to it, Duke,” he shot back as Bea walked away. Ben’s breathing went back to normal.

 

Beatrice sat in her stairwell with her copy of the script. Juliet. Bea was _fucking Juliet_. She hadn’t run into Hero yet since seeing the cast list. She feared the mocking that was coming her way. I’ll have to face it eventually, Bea realised. I’m going to be performing three nights as Juliet. Holy mother of God.

“Oh, hey Bea!” Beatrice looked up to see a small dark-haired girl standing in front of her.

“Hi Sam,” Bea said. She noticed that Sam was holding a script identical to hers.

“Congrats on Juliet!” Sam said.

“Thanks,” Bea said, kind of surprised. I guess Sam’s not really familiar with my friend group, she thought. She doesn’t consider mocking me a way of saying congrats. It was nice though - a genuine congratulations. “Congrats to you too - Benvolio, right?”

“Yeah, I’m super excited. I really like the part, but I wasn’t sure if Mr. Francis was willing to cast me over a boy.”

“Well, go girl power!” Bea said. “I used the Queen Mab speech as my audition piece, Mr. Francis seems pretty cool about this stuff. I mean, productions of _Romeo & Juliet_ used to be all male. Imagine a young prepubescent boy playing Juliet - gah! A female Benvolio is nothing compared to that.” Sam laughed.

“Ah, that’s so true,” Sam said. “Hey, Benedick Hobbes got cast as Romeo, right?”

“Yep.”

“I’ve seen you guys sitting together a lot. Are you two, you know, together?” Sam asked.

“What, like a couple?” Bea laughed. “Oh my God, no. No way. Hahahaha. NO. Just no.” Good job, Beatrice. Way to freak the girl out.

“Oh, right, just thought I’d ask,” Sam said. “I always wondered. You guys would look cute together.” Beatrice mimed gaging. “Ben’s pretty good looking, don’t you think?” Sam asked.

“Um,” Bea said. “I will withhold from commenting.”

“Haha, alright then,” Sam said. “I guess I’ll see you at the first rehearsal on Friday.”

 

“This is just too good to be true!” Hero cried. “You and Benedick! How are you going to stop bickering long enough to act in love with each other? I have no idea, but I trust Mr. Francis’ judgment.” Bea sighed and rolled her eyes.

“What about you and Claudio?” she teased back. “Only been together two weeks and already you’ve been cast as a couple.” Hero blushed and Bea knew she’d successfully deflected the attention away.

“I am also playing your mother,” Hero said, “so from now on you have to do everything I say!”

“Yeah right!” Bea said. “Juliet’s a rebel, if anything. She refuses to marry Paris despite her mother’s wishes. So there. Plus, I’m still older in real life.”

“Well, maybe if she’d just listened to her parents she wouldn’t have died!” Hero replied. There was a pause. “We’re getting very into character, aren’t we?”

“Method acting,” Bea noted and Hero grinned.

“So does that mean you and B–”

“NO,” Bea yelled and ran from the kitchen.

 

Bea was very nervous the night before the first rehearsal. It was a strange feeling and she didn’t like it. It wasn’t even really a rehearsal, it was only a read through. She wasn’t expected to have prepared anything yet. This was just the start. Hero didn’t seem concerned about anything but this wasn’t as new to her as it was to Bea.

In fact, the only other person who might be feeling anything similar to her was Benedick. He was in the same situation as her, right? He had just as little experience as her and here they were, Romeo and Juliet.

Bea opened up her laptop and logged onto Facebook. She wasn’t friends with Benedick, God no. Outside of their friendship gropu, she tried to avoid him as much as possible. But somehow they kept ending up together - not only did they seem to share endless mutual best friends, their physics teacher had made them sit together for all of last year in that stupid seating chart and now they were cast in this stupid play. Did that make them friends automatically? Bea didn’t really know much about him, she realised sadly, aside from what she’d learnt about him that summer when they were fourteen. She wondered if his mother still made those fantastic chocolate chip cookies. Bea had tasted a lot of cookies in the three years since (for science, obviously) but none had even come close, not even Hero’s.

Bea didn’t want to go through this alone. If anything, she wanted someone as equally confused and sometimes annoying by her side. She clicked **add friend**.

 

Ben was sitting at his computer when the request came up. Huh, he thought. He hadn’t been expecting any kind of recognition from Beatrice Duke. What on earth had he done to warrant that? I am playing Romeo, he realised. Maybe she’s going to try to be civil after all. He accepted the request and decided to send her a message.

**Benedick Hobbes:** looking forward to rehearsal tomorrow?

He sat there and watched the three little dots while she replied.

**Beatrice Duke:** actually, i feel kind of nervous

Wow, Ben thought. Maybe she’s human after all.


End file.
